UK Ad Watchdog to Clamp Down on Crypto Marketing: Report

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9 July 2021

The U.K. Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) plans to tighten its monitoring of crypto marketing.

  • The advertising regulator said it will ramp up steps to identify and remove misleading or irresponsible ads for crypto products, the Financial Times reported Friday.
  • Efforts will particularly focus on online and social media platforms, with companies being warned or required to add disclaimers to their ads.
  • The authority has identified crypto as a "red alert," said Miles Lockwood, the ASA's director of complaints and investigations.
  • While the ASA has generally been reactive in this area – responding to complaints from consumers – it will now actively look for potentially misleading online ads using artificial intelligence and web scraping, the FT said.
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